A sex tycoon who owns a string of massage parlors in Thailand is boiling with anger and indignation against the Bangkok police.
With nearly 2,000 young women working for him, Chuwit Kamolvisit says he plied police for years with cash, Rolex watches, European cars and free services at his six parlors, with names like Emmanuelle, Victoria's Secret, and Honolulu Love Boat.
And what does he get in return? Harassment and indifference when he got into trouble with the law for employing underage girls.
So Chuwit, 42, became a crusader for civic virtue, a celebrity avenger, holding daily news conferences to reveal charges of police greed, threatening to name the high-ranking policemen he says were beneficiaries of his generosity.
"This isn't a love comedy. It's a war movie. Somebody has to die in the end," the trim, mustachioed entrepreneur, who favors pink shirts and flashy ties, told The Associated Press in an interview at one of his clubs, Copa Cabana.
Thais are hanging on his every word, eagerly awaiting the latest episode of Chuwit's serial expose. Suddenly, the news channels and front pages of Thai newspapers have become spicier.
"Chuwit has become a public icon," wrote Suthichai Yoon, the editor of The Nation, an English-language daily.
Chuwit has not provided a shred of evidence to back his claims. But in a country where police corruption is legendary, the credibility of Bangkok's officers is much the same of its massage parlor owners. No surprise then that the Thai public are enjoying watching the brown-uniformed force squirm under Chuwit's torrential allegations on national television.
"Once he may have been a `bad boy' ready to cut corners and grease palms ... but when he decided to go for broke against corrupt police, Chuwit overnight became the darling of the urban middle class, who saw him as the outlet for their entrenched frustrations against `crooks in uniform,'" Suthichai wrote.
Chuwit's troubles -- and those of the force -- started when police arrested him on May 2 on charges of unlawfully demolishing a downtown Bangkok block housing scores of bars and shops to make way for another massage parlor, the Taj Mahal.
On May 3, he was charged with running a brothel using underage girls at the Honolulu Love Boat. He could face 20 years in prison if convicted.
In Thailand, a massage can mean two things -- a genuine oil rub by hard-knuckled middle-aged masseurs, or the massage from a young woman that usually leads to sex in a back room.
But what happens at the parlor is between the masseuse and the client, Chuwit says.
He claims to have spent about US$289,156 each month in payoffs to policemen. He said he had even treated them to expensive wines and house renovations..
"Enough is enough. I'm a mad dog now," he said. "If they can't help me out of something trivial like this, I see no point why I should continue paying it."
When a hiker fell from a 55m waterfall in wild New Zealand bush, rescuers were forced to evacuate the badly hurt woman without her dog, which could not be found. After strangers raised thousands of dollars for a search, border collie Molly was flown to safety by a helicopter pilot who was determined to reunite the pet and the owner. A week earlier, an emergency rescue helicopter found the woman with bruises and lacerations after a fall at a rocky spot at the waterfall on the South Island’s West Coast. She was airlifted on March 24, but they were forced to
CONFIDENCE BOOSTER: ’After parkour ... you dare to do a lot of things that you think only young people can do,’ a 67-year-old parkour enthusiast said In a corner of suburban Singapore, Betty Boon vaults a guardrail, crawls underneath a slide, executes forward shoulder rolls and scales a steep slope, finishing the course to applause. “Good job,” the 69-year-old’s coach cheers. This is “geriatric parkour,” where about 20 retirees learned to tackle a series of relatively demanding exercises, building their agility and enjoying a sense of camaraderie. Boon, an upbeat grandmother, said learning parkour has aided her confidence and independence as she ages. “When you’re weak, you will be dependent on someone,” she said after sweating it out with her parkour classmates in suburban Toa Payoh,
HIGH HOPES: The power source is expected to have a future, as it is not dependent on the weather or light, and could be useful for places with large desalination facilities A Japanese water plant is harnessing the natural process of osmosis to generate renewable energy that could one day become a common power source. The possibility of generating power from osmosis — when water molecules pass from a less salty solution to a more salty one — has long been known. However, actually generating energy from that has proved more complicated, in part due the difficulty of designing the membrane through which the molecules pass. Engineers in Fukuoka, Japan, and their private partners think they might have cracked it, and have opened what is only the world’s second osmotic power plant. It generates
Chinese dissident artist Gao Zhen (高兟), famous for making provocative satirical sculptures of former Chinese leader Mao Zedong (毛澤東), was tried on Monday over accusations of “defaming national heroes and martyrs,” his wife and a rights group said. Gao, 69, who was detained in 2024 during a visit from the US, faces a maximum three-year prison sentence, said his wife, Zhao Yaliang (趙雅良), and Shane Yi, a researcher at the Chinese Human Rights Defenders group which operates outside the nation. The closed-door, one-day trial took place at Sanhe City People’s Court in Hebei Province neighboring the capital, Beijing, and ended without a
RSS